Time For That
by the ramblin rose
Summary: Caryl, AU. It's been said that to everything there's a season. Change isn't always fast, but the changes you wish to see can always take place. There's time for everything, you just have to start somewhere. Rated for content.
1. Chapter 1

**AN: So this is going to be a "short" story. It was requested some time back by a Tumblr anon who wanted to see a very specific Daryl/Carol dynamic. I hope I'm able to create that for the anon.**

 **If all goes according to plan, it'll be seven chapters long.**

 **I own nothing from the Walking Dead.**

 **I hope that you enjoy! Let me know what you think!**

111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111

Carol stopped by the water fountain and stood there refilling her bottle as slowly as the barely functioning fountain required. She'd be a few moments late to the meeting, but it wouldn't matter. It was the first night with the new group and people were always straggling in fifteen or twenty minutes late to the first meeting. She understood, too, the reason. Many of them weren't actually late. Many of them arrived even hours before and they spent their time sitting in their cars in the parking lot. Some of them worked their way through half a pack of cigarettes and came in trailing the scent behind them. Others helped themselves to some beverage they probably had hidden under their seats—there were more discarded beverage containers in the trashcan outside the center on the first night with a new group than on any other night. Others, still, came in wiping at their faces and trying to hide that their eyes were still red and damp from the tears that had made them dawdle.

 _And it made sense._

Carol remembered, all too well, the way she'd felt on her first night. She'd sat in the parking lot, too, for longer than she'd intended. Several times she'd touched her keys like she might crank the car again. More than once she rested her hands on the steering wheel—on the shift—and she'd considered leaving.

She'd cried and she'd talked to herself and to God and to any entity that would listen to her.

 _She wasn't this person. She didn't need this. She wasn't someone who needed something like this. There wasn't anything that they could do anyway. It would just make things worse. It would be better if she left. What if someone saw her? How could she explain that? Would she have to explain it? Ed was gone from her life—but was he ever really going to be gone? The Center couldn't help her with that. She wasn't the kind of person that came to things like this, anyway, expecting their help. She wasn't that kind of person._

 _She was that kind of person. And this was real. And it had happened. And it was her life. At least, it felt like it was what was left of her life._

She'd been late to her first meeting. Her second, too. She'd left the first meeting never expecting to set foot back into the room, but the next week she'd found herself there, again, sitting in one of the chairs that pinched if she moved wrong. After that she'd learned never to wear a skirt to the meetings for fear that their light fabric wouldn't be thick enough to stave off the pinching of the cracked chairs and she wouldn't be bold enough to ask someone to switch with her.

At that time, she hadn't found her voice. She wasn't used to having one. It took her a while to find out that she still had it.

When she "graduated" from the meetings, she could have left the Center behind entirely. She wasn't healed—if there was such a thing as ever being healed from the life that she'd called her own for all those years—but she'd gotten what she needed out of the meetings.

She'd learned to feel like Carol again, instead of simply like Ed's punching bag. She'd learned that, somewhere, Carol still existed.

And she'd made some connections. She'd made some friends and she'd realized that she wasn't alone in the world. Maybe that was the best thing she got out of those first meetings—her tongue stuck in her too-dry mouth and her heart rattling around in her chest while she hoped that, somehow, they wouldn't get around to hearing her story. She'd learned that she wasn't alone. She wasn't the only person in the world to ever go through what she'd been through and it wasn't telling about something about her that she'd ended up in the marriage that had nearly cost her life.

The Center, for being nothing more than a pretty run-down building in a not-so-great part of town, had given Carol her life back, even if it was poetic and dramatic to think of it that way.

And that was why Carol gave some of her new life to the Center.

She raised money for the place wherever and whenever she could. She worked, now, at an office uptown, but her free time was mostly dedicated to volunteer work for the Center. She made phone calls. She attended meetings.

And at night? She helped mediate the meetings for people, just like her, who believed they didn't have a voice—that they didn't even have a self—any longer and she helped them get back on their feet.

Of course some went back to their lives because they didn't know any different, couldn't see any way out, or couldn't believe that they even deserved better. But there were others. There were others that, just like Carol, got control of their lives once more and left behind the people who had been veritable demons for them.

Those people were the reason that Carol dedicated so much of her new-found life to the Center. And they were the reason that she'd continue to do just that.

Backing away from the water fountain to start down the dim hallway to the small room, Carol bumped into a woman. The woman looked at her, something like terror in her eyes, and Carol offered her the best and warmest smile that she had.

"I'm sorry," Carol said.

The woman smiled, clearly relieved that Carol wasn't going to fault her for their very minor bodily collision, and returned the smile.

"It's OK," she said. "I—I wasn't really paying attention."

Carol raised her eyebrows at the woman.

"Can I help you find something?" Carol asked, already knowing where the woman must be going.

The woman's smile renewed.

"I'm looking for...room B?" The woman offered.

Carol nodded and reached a hand to gently touch the woman on the back. With her other hand, she indicated the direction that they'd be going in.

"I'm headed there myself," Carol said. "I'm Carol—and we always meet in the same room. What's your name?" The woman hesitated a moment. "You can tell me any name you like," Carol said, sensing her trepidation. "But—Carol's my real name."

"Annie," the woman offered. Carol was positive it was a chosen name, but it didn't matter. As "Annie" warmed up to her—and to the whole idea of this—she would likely become comfortable enough to share more information about herself. There was time for honesty and openness. After all, at this point Carol couldn't be sure if there was a _Mr. Annie_ somewhere that they had to worry about. A Mr. Annie that Annie, no doubt, was very worried about.

Once they were in the small meeting room, Carol offered a hug to Robert. He was a counselor that dedicated much of his free time to the Center as well. He had been there for, literally, as long as Carol had. He'd helped her out in the beginning and she was pleased to have the opportunity to consider him now a friend as much as she'd once considered him something of a hero. Admittedly, in the beginning, she'd had something of a crush on him—as embarrassed as she'd been to admit it to him once when they'd gone out for some friendly drinks and she'd met his partner, Michael, of fifteen years—but she knew now that it had only been a crush borne of her admiration of a man that was going to help her when she so desperately wanted his help.

Robert's job was really to lead the meetings. He was there to offer words of encouragement and advice to the people who came. Carol's job was a little different. She was there to offer those same words of encouragement, but to do it from—as Robert described it—a softer angle than he had to offer. She focused her attention on comforting and winning the trust of those who seemed the least likely to share—and usually she was pretty good at her job.

If it came down to it, Carol wasn't against sharing her own story to get through to someone and to convince them that there was some hope for their future. She preferred not to share, of course, but she would if that's what it took.

There were thirteen people in the group that night. Thirteen new faces. Maybe it wasn't a large number in most group settings, but a number so high in this location pained Carol's heart. There were thirteen people who sat in a circle because they were the victims of abuse. Their lives had been disrupted, disturbed, or even destroyed by the cruelty of someone else. Most of them blamed themselves for their experiences. Many of them would return to those less-than-desirable environments when the night was done.

And all of them had come for some kind of help. All of them had come seeking some kind of hope.

Carol returned to the Center, week after week, because someone needed to be there to offer them that hope. After all, she still remembered how she felt, all those years before, sitting in her car and trying to convince herself that her life—which constantly felt like it was burning to the ground around her—was perfectly fine and she didn't need anything more than to simply _try a little harder._

In every group there was the same cast of characters, though they varied slightly.

There were those who were out of their bad situation but realized that, outside of that, they didn't know how to survive. Those were the people who had taken the first step but were looking for someone to help them take the next.

There were others who were still in their situation, but desperately wanted to get out, and they were coming to find out if there would be something for them when the person who had told them—convinced them—that they couldn't live without them was gone.

There were those that were still afraid. They were terrified of their abusers. They were afraid of life with them, but they were also afraid of life without them. They were scared, even, of the people in the room. They wore their fear on their faces and it shook in their voices.

And there were those who believed they weren't supposed to be there. They were the ones that were either still wrapped up in their denial or were so overcome by their anger about how their lives had gone that they were punishing themselves by trying to deny themselves anything that even sounded like it might be something better.

Tonight there were all types, but there only seemed to be one who belonged to the last category—the outsiders, as Carol thought of them—and he caught Carol's attention fairly quickly.

The man identified himself as Daryl when they went around the circle and gave their names. There was nothing in his expression that suggested that Daryl wasn't his real name, so Carol assumed that he wasn't lying. He was one of only two men in the room that night, besides Robert. He looked like he'd gotten off work—some kind of manual labor job—and come directly to the meeting. He was in need of a haircut, maybe in need of a meal and a shower, and he was wearing a fairly fresh bruise on his cheek and busted knuckles. Carol couldn't be sure if either of those—or both—came from his home life or came from his job. It really didn't matter. He was there because he was a victim of abuse—the same as all of them.

His body language said he was uncomfortable. One minute he sat back in the chair, almost uncomfortably leaned back like the class clown in the back of the classroom, and the next he was sitting and leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. He crossed his arms across his chest only to uncross them. He chewed at his fingers, studied his cuticles, and returned to gnaw at the skin until it made Carol cringe to think how sore they must be. He watched everyone, his eyes darting around, and he cleared his throat frequently. He looked, the whole time, like he was considering bolting for the door that he kept eyeing in between watching the people around him.

He didn't share his story. At least, he didn't share much more than the introduction of it. As soon as he'd begun to lay out the details of everything, he'd simply stopped, declared it was "stupid," sat back in his chair, and refused to say another word.

 _It was stupid. He didn't belong here. He wasn't that kind of person._

As soon as the meeting had let out, Carol went after Daryl. He'd already slipped out, though, and she was sure that she wouldn't find him. She searched the building as quickly as she could and finally gave up. She burrowed her keys out of her purse and headed out the door with a few others who were leaving. Halfway across the parking lot, though, she saw him. He was sitting in his truck, the window rolled down, smoking a cigarette and almost reclining like he intended to spend a good deal of time there—just sitting.

 _Maybe he was avoiding going home. Or maybe he was just processing everything. Carol, too, had spent some time simply sitting in her car at the beginning._

Carol returned her keys to her purse, crossed the parking lot quickly, and brought herself right up to the driver's side window of Daryl's truck. She called his name to get his attention and didn't miss that he jumped. He'd been pretty deeply involved in his thoughts. Carol offered him her hand when he acknowledged her presence. He hesitated, but then he reached a hand out the truck window and gave it an awkward shake.

"It's not unusual to feel uncomfortable on your first night," Carol said. He hummed at her. Carol swallowed, offered him a soft smile, and nodded. "I know," she said. "It's uncomfortable. You don't—want to talk about it. You don't want to admit it. It feels like it's about you. The abuse. But it's not about you. It never is." He stared at her. It was almost unnerving. Almost. Carol had learned not to be made as uncomfortable by things as she once was. "The important thing is that you came," she continued. "You recognized that there was a problem—whatever it is. And you came because of that problem. If there wasn't? If you really—didn't belong here? It would have never struck you to come in the first place." He simply continued to stare at her. He sort of cocked his head to the side a little, almost like he was trying to understand her. He finished his cigarette and used it to light another—it was the only time he took his eyes off her.

Carol shifted her weight and reached into her purse. She burrowed around until she found a scrap of paper that had once been a grocery list and one of the black stick pens that she always had a million of scattered about.

"We can help you," Carol said. "We really can. I know—I know it doesn't seem like we can? But we can. We can—help with housing. With a job—if you need one. Food. We can help with just about anything. All you have to do is ask. And the meetings? It doesn't feel like they help—everyone just talking about their problems and nothing really changing. But it changes. You just have to decide, for you, when you're really ready. And we can help."

She looked at Daryl again. His features had softened. He was listening to her attentively, even if he was doing his best to look entirely unapproachable.

A shower and a haircut, and Carol thought he wouldn't look unapproachable at all. She felt her cheeks burn slightly at the thought.

"I'm Carol," she said. She offered him the slip of paper. "This is my number. My personal number. Even if the group isn't for you? If you just—want someone to talk to? Call me."

Daryl reached a hand out, took the piece of paper, looked at it, and then nodded. He hummed at her again before finally making a sound that reminded her that he was capable of producing actual speech—even if his speech wasn't entirely impressive.

"Yeah," he said. "Yeah—thanks."

Carol smiled.

"No problem," she said.

"Daryl," he offered.

"Daryl," Carol repeated. "Will you come back next week?"

He shook his head at her.

"Don't think so," he admitted, this time speaking around the cigarette caught in his lips. Carol nodded her acceptance. At least he was being honest.

"When you're ready," she said. He nodded again. "It can get better," Carol said. "If you want it to." He nodded again. "If you just want someone to talk to," Carol offered again, pointing toward the piece of paper that he was reading like it contained more than her name and some numbers.

"Yeah," Daryl repeated, lifting the paper slightly and somewhat waving it at her. "Thanks."

Carol sucked in a breath, offered him a goodnight, and smiled to herself when he returned the gesture. Then she turned and headed back toward her own car, finding her keys once more.

She didn't know if he'd ever call. But even if he didn't, she hoped he managed to find his way out. She hoped all of them did.


	2. Chapter 2

**AN: Here we go, the second of seven chapters.**

 **Warning for domestic violence and Dixon mouth.**

 **I hope that you enjoy! Let me know what you think!**

111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111

Henny Dixon—self-named "Rooster" because he had a certain disgust for the name his mother, and by consequence his maternal grandfather, had given him—was dying. The problem, really, was that he didn't seem to be dying nearly fast enough.

For every kid or person that ever spent an hour on their knees negotiating with God for the spared life of their loved one, Daryl had spent twice that long trying to negotiate for the parting of his. Rooster was seventy-two years old. He was seventeen years the senior of Daryl's older brother and Merle had ten years on Daryl. With one breath, Rooster would crow that he'd lived a grand life—telling stories that were sure to curl someone's lip and turn their stomach—and with the other he would declare the whole damn thing had just been one long shit-show and he'd been cast as the star. Daryl knew, though, that Rooster had enjoyed every damn minute of the seventy-two year shit-show. Even the misery. In fact, he might argue that Rooster liked the misery the best.

Rooster was older than most men who reached their seventies. He'd say that it was hard work and suffering—all the sacrifices he made for the two boys-turned-men that aged his body to such a quick state of non-repair—but really it was Rooster's own poor life choices that had gotten him in the condition that he was in.

Doctors said there wasn't anything they could do for him. His lungs were shot from his two to three pack a day habit—which he'd never given up. He coughed and it sounded like a diseased, carbureted engine trying to start up on an icy morning. He hacked and he choked all day long. There were periods of silence, every now and again, in between the disgusting hacks when Daryl caught himself holding his breath—half-praying that the sound would never come again. Rooster's liver was shot too, an immediate stamp on the death warrant, because he'd used it to filter more rot-gut in his lifetime than most distilleries had ever even seen.

Rooster Dixon, for all intents and purposes, was dying—he just wouldn't hurry up and do it.

It seemed to Daryl that those who had any business going on and living didn't get around to it, but those who would have been better never to have even existed seemed to take their precious time crawling to the hole that was waiting on them.

Daryl had been waiting forty five years for the old man to die. But tonight, clearly, wasn't going to be the night—it never was.

There was no need trying to figure out what the screaming and yelling was about. In his room in the small house, the door closed, Daryl couldn't hear _all_ the details. At least, he couldn't hear them if he didn't listen for them. And he sure as shit wasn't listening to them. It didn't matter. Everything turned into a fight. Everything turned into the opportunity to display every single piece of profanity known to man.

Maybe Merle had knocked up some damn chick again and was getting his ass chewed out while he went around scraping for change out of coffee cans and couch cushions to try to pay to get rid of the damn thing. Maybe Merle had lost his job again—he never held down the same one for more than six months anyway. Maybe Merle had wrecked something—which he'd undoubtedly fix with his spare time once he was unemployed again—and Rooster saw it as some kind of personal attack.

Or maybe they'd just both had too damn much to drink.

Fifty five years and Merle still hadn't escaped.

Fifty five years and he was still paddling his fuck-up canoe down Rooster-shit River. Paying the old man's bills meant that neither of them had the money to do a single damn thing for themselves. Both pouring in every red cent they made still left them fighting at the end of the month because the bills always seemed to go longer than the cash did.

Neither of them had ever been really taught to want more than they had at any moment. It didn't mean, of course, that they didn't want other things, but it meant that they saw those things just as what they were—shit that just wasn't going to happen. They were Dixons. And in Rooster's ridiculous speeches, that meant that they were some kind of kings on Earth. In reality, it meant that they were kings of their own garbage heap and that nobody with an ounce of sense or self-respect got within ten feet of them unless they were serving them with some kind of warrant.

There were plenty of women, but they were the kind of women that came with a veritable petri-dish of problems—most of them medical, but not all—to just further complicate their lives. There had been kids, too, but most of them had been swapped out and disappeared with a little cash changing hands. Whatever became of them, if they weren't wiped away like the bad mistake they were, was unknown to Merle and Daryl both—though Daryl had never actually had to fork over the cash like his brother had.

They were Dixons.

And they were forever in Rooster's debt, for the wonderful gift of having been born into his grand shit-show of life, until the day that the old man up and finally kicked the bucket. A day that just couldn't come soon enough. But it wouldn't come tonight.

Because Rooster Dixon, from the sounds of it, was in rare form tonight.

Daryl's only hope, really, was that he crowed and scratched until he gave himself a heart attack and they could drink over his corpse until the coroner got there to remove the damn thing.

Daryl pretended that he was reading the hot-rod magazine that he'd picked up out of a basket of free-books in a waiting room somewhere. He'd been reading the same thing for at least a year. More than reading, really, he was looking at the pictures. One day, he told himself, he was going to build one of those beauties. One day he was going to stand back, admire his handiwork, and he was going to be the envy of every asshole that saw him drive by. Maybe he'd even have a nice woman—one who didn't look like she came complete with smallpox—sitting right up in the passenger seat of the car.

More than likely, if he ever did build something like that, he'd have to sell it the minute it was done just to pay to keep Rooster's sorry ass alive because Daryl intended to avoid the prison time he'd have to serve for doing the world a great justice and putting a pillow over the old man's head while he slept.

The yelling carried on for longer than Daryl kept track of. It was the background record to his life. He could tune it out, at this point, better than most people could ignore the metallic hum of a window unit AC. There was an occasional crash that made him jump—the sound of some thing or another reaching its end. Last time it was the television. Tonight, from the sounds of it, it was the coffee table.

And then Daryl heard the final sound that he was used to hearing. Suddenly—as suddenly as it had begun—the screaming stopped. He heard the slamming of the door—hard enough the entire structure of the house seemed to shake around him—and he heard the sound of his brother's somewhat sick truck struggling to rally itself to life.

Merle was gone. He'd had enough of the night and he'd finally run out. He was headed down to the bar, more than likely, and he wouldn't come back again. At least, he wouldn't come back until at least noon the next day.

Merle had been running out since he was old enough get out the door without assistance. One way or another, he seemed to find the exit.

He'd always left Daryl behind.

As soon as the silence had settled, the noise started again. Rooster, left alone, cussed and fought with the silence as hard as he'd fought with Merle. There were a few more crashes—smaller items this time that he could lift and throw—and then Daryl heard him hacking and choking before he started spitting Daryl's name repeatedly. Daryl practically threw himself off the bed and rushed out of his room. He wasn't anxious to run into the old man's wrath, but he would do just about anything to maintain the sanctity of his small space. So far he'd given Rooster very little reason to come into his room, and he wanted to keep it that way. He'd rather meet the old man on the neutral ground of the half-destroyed living room than given him any passage into the small bedroom.

It took less than sixty seconds for Daryl to tell that Rooster was drunk—his already overworked liver no doubt chugging away to try to process its punishment—and he was intending on simply drinking more. That was, if he didn't waste all that he had left.

Daryl barely cleared the doorway into the kitchen—which was only separate from the living room by a thin strip of metal that was roughly tacked down and a change of cheap floor patterns—before a bottle came toward him. Forty five years had given him reflexes that boxers would be jealous of and he ducked in time to send it clattering into the hallway behind him, the thick glass resisting shatter.

"Fuckin' hell's your damn problem?!" Daryl yelled at the old man. He sped his steps and tried to catch the flailing hands of his old man. If he could direct him to the old recliner, at this point, he might not get back up again. Touching him, though, he realized that it wasn't going to be that easy. Rooster—though dying at a pace that was far too slow, even if it was guaranteed by medical professionals—retained an uncanny amount of strength for a man that was absolutely decrepit when it came to doing something he didn't have a mind to do.

Rooster shoved him back and Daryl held himself back from retaliating. Rooster was strong, yes, but Daryl was sure that he could probably kill the old man with his bare hands. Of course, that wasn't what the hell a son was meant to do—so he didn't do it. Merle, too, could've ended his existence years ago. But Rooster didn't seem to think of the self-restraint they practiced regularly.

"You're just as damn worthless as he is!" Rooster spat. He wiped his hand across his mouth—drool was an unattractive side-effect of his many medical woes and the fact that he drank so much he was dehydrated to the point of a commonly frothy mouth. "Just as damn good for nothing!"

These were words that barely even stung anymore. They were words that barely even registered with Daryl. He'd heard of people saying and hearing "I love you" so much that they started to think it didn't mean anything—and that's how he felt about the venomous outpouring from his old man.

"Sit your ass down!" Daryl yelled at the old man. Rooster broke his attention on Daryl for a moment and went walking around, looking for something. Daryl glanced around the living room. He'd been right. It had been the coffee table that had suffered in tonight's altercation. Merle, no doubt, had broken it with his back or his ass—probably too drunk to stay on his feet when it came down to it.

Finding what he was going for in his chair, another half-finished bottle of the booze that wouldn't poison him fast enough, Rooster straightened back up and pointed a gnarled finger in Daryl's direction.

"Don't you fuckin' tell me what to do, boy!" He spat. "Don't you fuckin' tell me what to do. I'll wring your damn neck! Piece of shit. Good for nothin'. Same damn worthless piece of shit as he is."

And it went on.

And while it went on, Daryl did his best to step around the broken pieces of coffee table to get to the old man again. Helping him down might make him stay. Helping him down might mean he'd sit and drink until he passed out in the old chair that would be burned the day that he finally croaked.

But then it took a turn—no doubt the one that it had taken to send Merle running from the house again—and Rooster switched up his words to ones that Daryl just couldn't ignore.

"Put her damn ass in the ground, ya did!" Rooster yelled in between bouts of hacking. "Put her ass in the damn ground and it shoulda been you all the damn time!"

Daryl felt his blood almost instantly reach boiling point. He didn't have to say her name. He didn't have to say how he'd made the connection. He didn't have to say anything else. Just the very mention of her and Daryl saw red in front of his eyes and ignored the instant rush of lightheadedness that came with the fury. He held himself back from punching the old man—something he couldn't do—but he pointed at him, pushing him back toward the chair with the other hand.

"Was you put her in the damn ground!" Daryl yelled. "She died because she couldn't stand livin' with your ass no more! You poisoned her! She'da rather burned to death than save herself because you—your sorry ass—made it so that it weren't worth livin'! She died to get the hell away from you, you sorry son of a bitch! Just to get the hell away from you!"

He almost didn't feel the hard, blunt blow of Rooster's fist as it connected with his eye. The area hadn't fully healed from the last time that Rooster had cold-cocked him. It wouldn't heal before it happened again. But Daryl hardly felt it because his anger dulled the pain and because the blows, really, weren't much in comparison to what Rooster could do before he was seventy-two damn years old and dying much to slow for the peace of mind of the world.

Daryl didn't hit him back because that's not what he was supposed to do. He hadn't hit him since he'd been nineteen years old. It was the one time in his life he'd hit the old man. The first and the last. And he couldn't even remember, now, why he'd done it. He couldn't remember now what Rooster had used to bludgeon him for it either. He remembered Merle, though, and he remembered him talking to him in the hospital—remembered him telling him that he had to remember that they were Dixons. They could hit each other. They could hit any damn body they pleased. They could start a fight at the bar just because they were bored. But they didn't hit the old man.

Because that just wasn't what you did.

So Daryl didn't hit Rooster.

Instead, he took a page from his brother's book.

"Fuck you," Daryl spat at Rooster. He turned, left the old man standing right where he was—panting and hacking and dying much to slow to do Daryl any good—and he left him to seethe in the bitterness and rage that were pickling him and preserving him from the death that Daryl had wished on him since he could remember understanding that people, when they died, were just fucking gone.

And Daryl left, telling himself that the extra cool touch of the air around his cheeks felt that way just because his eyes naturally watered when he was punched square in the face.

He didn't know where he was going, but anywhere was better than the place he called home.


	3. Chapter 3

**AN: Here's another chapter.**

 **Warning for some possibly disturbing images and Dixon mouth.**

 **I hope that you enjoy! Let me know what you think!**

11111111111111111111111111111111111111

Forty five years.

Forty five years and not a single one of those stupid ass Hallmark moments that television would tell him were the trademark of father-son relationships.

If there had been a gift-card aisle dedicated to his relationship with the old man? It would've been a helluva lot different than the gift cards that were available.

 _Baby's first black eye. Thanks for the busted lip. Daddy's on a bender. Sorry for stealing the money you had stashed from your summer job and spending it on my stash. Electric bill didn't get paid again. Baby's four millionth Be-A-Man-About-It-Speech._

None of the memories were heartwarming. Not of his old man.

His mother? She was different. Daryl still had a picture of her. Just one. Most of them got destroyed in the fire. Most of them were burned away. But there were a couple of pictures in some fake, gold-trimmed photo frames that had survived the fire. They were in the living room, the farthest room from the bedroom where they pulled out what was left of her body in an over-sized plastic bag, and they'd survived. Daryl found them when he was rummaging through what was left with a shovel. Most everything that hadn't been burned away entirely had been damaged by the smoke or the water they'd used to control the flames. If it survived, it smelled too damn bad to keep. Most of it was just scooped up by the backhoe and dumped into the back of the dump truck that cleared the lot.

Daryl had kept the pictures, though, when he'd found that they were only a little browned behind their glass protection. He still had the one of her.

It took him twenty years to forgive her for up and dying that day. Maybe he still wasn't over it.

He rubbed his fingers around the edge of the picture, careful to never touch the photograph itself, and took a pull from the bottle of rot-gut that he held in the wadded up paper bag. It was dark. Pitch black. The light from the streetlight above him was the only thing that illuminated anything around him. It was the only thing that made her face even slightly visible to him at all.

She'd been married to Rooster since she'd been fifteen years old. She'd signed her own death warrant the day she'd signed that marriage certificate. A man like Rooster Dixon destroyed everything he touched. He had the Midas touch for turning everything to shit. He ruined everything. She was no different.

Maybe it made sense that she just stayed there and let herself get burned up. They said she was drunk. Probably. They said she'd passed out in the bed, cigarette in hand, and it had just gone up all around her. They'd said she was dead from the smoke before the firemen ever even got there—before the flames just ate her all up.

Daryl always wondered, though, if it was the truth.

They hadn't really searched for the truth. They hadn't done an autopsy. What use was there? Doing an autopsy wasn't going to bring her back to life. It wasn't going to rebuild the house or fix the broken family that had lived in its walls.

But Daryl still wondered.

Rooster had made her life a living hell. Even Daryl knew that and he'd been a kid with skinned knees when she'd gone. Of course she'd have taken any way out that she could.

Sometimes even Daryl thought about taking any way out that he could.

He put her picture back in his wallet. He tucked it safely away and rubbed his thumb over it only once it was behind the protective plastic coating. He sat there, still looking at it, while he took another drink out of the bottle.

He was parked just outside the liquor store. The red dot stared at him and he stared back out of his windshield. He could stay parked there all night if he wanted to. He had before. Nobody was paying him any attention. Not even the police. Around there they knew his truck and they knew Merle's truck. They let them be most of the time—as long as they weren't causing a scene somewhere that would get them hauled in.

Not even the police wanted to touch the Dixons with a ten foot pole.

Daryl was parked there because he didn't want to go to the bar. He already knew that Merle was there, watering his sorrows down with cheap booze, if he hadn't already found some woman to go home with. He didn't want to go in and share his misery with his brother. And he didn't want to run the risk of stirring Merle up, either. Sometimes seeing the shit that went down with Rooster got to be too much for Merle. He'd run out, but as soon as he saw some evidence of it coming out on Daryl's face, he'd try to go all Billy-Bad-Ass and want to stomp and snort. He couldn't and wouldn't take it out on Rooster, though, so instead he'd just end up causing some kind of trouble with some poor asshole who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and who had dared to look at him wrong. It got Merle hauled in more than it should—and Daryl didn't want that.

Not tonight.

Either one of them had the ability to kill the old man. They'd had it for some time. They didn't, though. That wasn't what they were supposed to do. At the end of the day, no matter what the hell he did to them, he was still their old man. They still owed it to him not to kill him.

Daryl laughed to himself and tasted more of the drink. He could only swallow it in small sips—not the large draws that Rooster and Merle used to get themselves saturated far too quickly—because it tasted terrible to him. He'd never developed quite the same taste for it that they had. It burned his throat. It burned his stomach. But he drank it because he told himself that it helped. What it helped, he wasn't quite sure, but he told himself that it helped.

He laughed to himself again. They owed it to the old man not to kill him and that's why they didn't. They owed it to him not to beat his ass as regularly as he'd beat theirs when he had the ability to do as he pleased. That's why they didn't. They were Dixons.

The family code. The creed. The way that things that were done. They'd heard it since they had ears.

Dixons look out for one another. Dixons stick together. You don't got a damn thing in the world if you don't got family. And it was a beautiful thought. Except the road always seemed to be a little one-sided from where Daryl was standing.

The old man hooted and hollered about the fact that he'd kept their asses alive after he gave them the precious gift of life—and maybe he had—but he'd never offered them more than the bare necessities. There'd always been a roof over their heads, though whether or not it leaked was up for debate. There had always been food—at least enough to keep them from starving to death. Most of the time there had been electricity and running water—even if the luxuries were few. He'd given them those things.

But he'd never given them much else that maybe they'd required.

There'd been a short supply of a lot of things once she'd been gone.

In return, though, Daryl and Merle followed the Dixon creed. They stuck by the old man. They kept a roof over his head—even if this one wasn't much better than the one that had burned to the ground. They kept the lights on, and did it dependably, and they kept food on the table. In fact, they ate better now than they once had. Once a month, whether they needed it or not, they scraped enough up to have a nice steak dinner. And Rooster always got the best cut of meat.

Because Dixons stuck together.

They had to stick together. The one part of the creed that was true was the fact that they didn't have a damn soul if they didn't have each other. One way or another they'd managed to fuck up their lives to the point that there simply wasn't anybody else that had anything to do with them. At least, not for more than a night.

Daryl tasted the liquor again. It burned in his throat. He liked the burn now because he'd had enough of it that it was starting to become a pleasant sting.

There were times that, living with Merle and the old man, Daryl longed to just be alone. He craved space and breathing room. He locked himself in the tiny room that he called his own to shut out the world. Other times, he took his truck out for a drive on some dirt roads to run away from them. When Merle's bike was running, and Merle wasn't using it, Daryl took it out too. He enjoyed the solitude of the road and the sound of nothing but the tires on the pavement and the wind blowing past his ears.

There were other times, though, when Daryl felt a loneliness that was like a hollow pit in his stomach. It was like the feeling of being profoundly hungry but knowing that no matter how much he ate, it just wasn't going to get any better.

Merle filled that pit with women whose names he never bothered to learn. For Daryl, it wasn't that simple. It wasn't the sex that he was after. The few times he'd tried it, he'd learned he didn't really even enjoy it. He couldn't figure out what the hell the fuss was all about. It was fine for a physical thing—but that wasn't what he wanted. It didn't do a single damn thing for the ache in his belly.

That was the other reason he didn't kill Rooster. It was the other reason that he'd never just stayed gone when he was out on those drives on the long roads. More than once he'd thought about—just driving on until he got somewhere where not a soul knew him—but he'd never done it.

He was afraid of how damn big the hole in his gut would get when there just wasn't anybody left to fill it. Merle and the old man? They weren't much—but they were all the hell he had.

And part of him, maybe, still thought that things could change.

Daryl laughed to himself. He sucked his teeth at the picture of her. She was smiling in the picture. He remembered her smiling like that, sometimes—early mornings that almost seemed to be as sepia-colored in his memory as they were in the picture. She'd smile at him—big and bold—and she'd call him "sweetheart" and she'd let him help with breakfast. She'd set the little round table that rocked if you leaned on it and they'd eat at it—her and "her boys". And Daryl would hope the old man never came back, but he always did.

Maybe he couldn't stand the gnawing feeling of the hole either. Maybe they really weren't that damn different.

But forty five years and Daryl was still hoping for something. What it was, he wasn't even sure. It would be ridiculous to say that he was still hoping the old man would take him out fishing. Rooster hadn't fished a day in his life as far as Daryl knew. Daryl wasn't keen on sports so he couldn't really say that he hoped the old man took him out in the yard to throw a ball around. No. Those weren't the things that he was hoping for.

But he was hoping for something.

Maybe it wasn't even from Rooster.

Daryl didn't even know. All he knew was that he'd lived in this shit-show life for forty five years and the only reason that he hadn't ended it—gone right up in flames, either literally or figuratively, just like she had—was because he was still hoping that there could be something else.

Daryl tasted the drink again, this time allowing himself a larger swallow than previously. It didn't burn as much now as it had even one taste before. The warmth was almost welcoming. He rubbed his thumb over the picture one last time and folded his fingers to close the wallet. His fingertip brushed a piece of paper and he moved to tuck the dollar bill—no doubt—back into its place.

He furrowed his brow at it, though, when he realized it wasn't a dollar.

 _Milk, brown sugar, eggs, toil..._

It was ripped. A grocery list in perfect, curly penmanship. He flipped it over, still puzzling for a moment over how such a thing had come to be tucked into his wallet like a memento.

It was her number. Carol. He laughed to himself again. Swallowed another taste of the liquid. She said she could help him. Said he could call. Just if he wanted to talk. She didn't have any idea of the shit-show he lived in. She didn't have any idea who he was or just what the hell he might have to say.

Still—she'd said he could call. If he just needed to talk.

He swallowed and found his phone. He flipped it open. He could upgrade to one of those smart phones if he wanted, but with the regularity with which he dropped and destroyed the little flip ones, he'd never bothered. It was late. It was very late. It was way too late to just want to talk.

But she hadn't told him what was too late. And maybe—and he knew he was reaching even as he though it—she was up late hoping to talk too.

Daryl closed the phone, but then he opened it again. The worst thing she could tell him was to go to hell. She could say it was too damn late. She could say he was an asshole for waking her up. She could tell him that she didn't want to talk to his worthless ass.

And still it wouldn't be the worst thing he'd heard tonight—and it would be said by someone he'd much rather hear tell him to go to hell than the old man that he hoped was busy dying at that very moment.

Daryl squinted at the numbers in the light coming down from the streetlight and dialed them. He planted the bottle he'd been nursing between his thighs and chewed his thumb while he listened to the hum of the numbers dialing.

His breath caught in his throat when she answered.


	4. Chapter 4

**AN: Here we are, another chapter.**

 **I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!**

111111111111111111111111111111111111111111

At one-thirty in the morning, Carol hadn't been expecting her phone to ring. Sophia was spending Friday night with a friend, though, so Carol was on high enough alert that she'd answered the phone within two rings and was already prepared for whatever crisis might follow her confirmation that she was there and she was listening. It wasn't Sophia at all, though, and it wasn't Rebecca, the mother of Sophia's friend.

It took Carol a moment to even muddle through who Daryl was and why he might be calling her at this hour. But as soon as he started to ramble—how she'd told him she could help him and she'd told him he could talk—she remembered where the man had come into possession of her number.

She did the only thing that she could do. She did the only thing that she felt was right.

Carol had the coffee brewing when Daryl knocked at her door. When she opened the door to him, he was standing there with a brown paper bag in one hand. The other hand had a veritable death grip on her doorframe to steady his body. He'd said that he'd had something to drink, but now Carol assumed that was probably the kind of gross understatement that drunk people often made.

"Come in," Carol said quickly. "Come inside. Come in..."

She ushered Daryl in and gestured toward her living room since the front door allowed him the option of choosing either the kitchen or the living room as a place to congregate. He missed her gesture entirely and invited himself into the kitchen. Carol might've protested, but he was sitting—rather roughly—in one of her kitchen chairs before she could get the words out.

The brown paper bag clanked when he put it on the table in front of him. It held whatever was left of what he'd been drinking.

"Let me get you some coffee," Carol offered.

"Too damn late for coffee," Daryl said, his tongue much looser than she recalled it being the night that she'd met him at the Center.

"Too late for booze too," Carol commented. "I'll make the coffee."

"Don't want no damn coffee," Daryl said. Carol watched him. He appeared to be talking to the bag in front of him more than he was talking to her. He also appeared to be dreadfully close to simply passing out.

"How much have you had to drink?" Carol asked, ignoring him just long enough to fix a mug of the liquid for both of them. It would, maybe, sober him up a little and it would keep her awake—both good things for the night she felt might be ahead of them.

"Not fuckin' enough...it's never enough," Daryl commented. To illustrate his point, he picked up the bag and drank from the bottle it concealed. Carol cringed. She quickly came to the table and put the coffee in front of him.

"I make really good coffee," Carol said. "And in my experience? A good cup of coffee solves a lot more problems than a bottle of—whatever that is."

Daryl looked at her. She hadn't really studied him yet. She was busy trying to get things set up to have time to sit with him. He looked like he had that night at the Center. He looked like he needed a shower. He looked _tired._ He looked like he could stand to sleep for a few days. His eye was a darker purple than it had been, though, and it looked like it was bruising still.

 _The old bruise was quickly covering over with a new one._

Carol got up from the table. Daryl returned to the bottle that he was drinking out of, deciding that her coffee wasn't going to solve a single problem, and Carol let him be. It was Friday. Odds were he had nowhere to be in the morning and if he did? He wasn't going to make it there anyway. He could sleep it off. Helping people looked different for everyone. Maybe that was the first step to helping him—he could just sleep it off. Carol took a dishrag and carefully filled it with ice cubes from the freezer. She wrapped them up and slipped the rag into a plastic bag that she wrapped with another rag. She shifted it around in her hands a few times to satisfy herself that it was cold enough to do the trick without being too cold and it wouldn't hurt the bruise any more than was absolutely necessary.

"Here," Carol said, offering the homemade ice pack to him. "Put this on that eye."

He started to refuse her, but Carol simply moved to hold it over his eye for him—and finally he had no choice but to put his hand up and allow her to make the transfer over to him. She sat again, tasted her own coffee, and tried to figure out where to start.

She didn't really do this. She'd given her number out to a lot of people before, but rarely had anyone actually called her. And the few who had? They were _women_. She knew what to say to them.

She didn't know what to say to Daryl.

But he needed her help, and she hoped she would figure it out. Preferably before he drank himself into an absolute stupor.

"You want to talk about it," Carol said. "That's what you told me on the phone. So—let's talk about it." Daryl groaned or growled. It was difficult to tell which. "What happened?" He sucked his teeth in response.

"I know what the hell you're thinkin'," Daryl said, his face mostly hidden from Carol by the combination of his unruly hair and the ice pack covering half his face.

"I don't think you do," Carol responded. "I don't know what I'm thinking—so I'm pretty sure that you don't."

"You're thinkin'—why the hell don't he just hit the old bastard back? Why the—why the hell don't he just..." Daryl stopped for a moment and laughed at a joke that only he was privy to before he drank from the bottle again. Carol resisted the urge to reach over and simply take it away from him. She didn't know what kind of drunk he could be—and she didn't want to move him from the state he was in to one that was much more volatile. The energy around him felt like he was teetering on an edge. She didn't want to push him in the wrong direction. "You're thinkin' why the hell don't he just _kill_ the old bastard...right? Kill him. Hit him. Just—go the fuck away and never come back. Leave 'em both to die. Rot in that house. Forget to turn the damn stove off and... _whoosh_. Just fuckin' gone."

Carol swallowed.

"Daryl...?" She asked softly, just testing to see if he was in a place to respond to her at all. He moved his head enough to look at her from around the ice pack. He was in his head—but he could be there too, with her, at least to some degree. "Who did this?" He hummed at her. He sucked his teeth. He shook his head. "You said you wanted to talk to me," Carol said. "And I want—I want very much to talk to you. But—to do that? You have to talk to me. That's the trick in all this. Who did it?"

He stared at her. He took his time, but finally he answered her.

"Rooster," he said. He shrugged. "Rooster. Always Rooster. From the time—from the time—I can't even remember. Rooster."

Carol furrowed her brow at him.

"Is Rooster a person?" Carol asked. He found some amusement in that. This time it seemed to be genuine amusement and not the somewhat ironic laugh that had accompanied his earlier imagined joke. He drank from the bottle and sucked his teeth again. He smacked his mouth. Carol got up to get a glass of water. If he wouldn't drink the coffee, maybe he'd drink the water.

"Ye-ep," he slurred. "Rooster Dixon. My old man. Rooster. Mean ass fuckin' birds. Mean ass fuckin' old ass men."

Carol's stomach turned as she returned and put the water in front of him before she took her seat again. He studied the glass and seemed to think that it was something he might want to drink because he went for it. And once he tasted it, he must have liked it. He drank half the glass before Carol could even think of a response to the revelation that his abuser was his father.

With the men that came to the Center, it was always difficult to tell who their abuser might be. And, more than that, it was often difficult to keep them there. None of them, it seemed, wanted to admit that somebody in their home was treating them worse than anybody had a right to. The men, more than the women, showed up to a first meeting and never came back.

Carol knew how delicate this whole situation could be.

"You live with him?" Carol asked.

Daryl stopped drinking long enough to nod at her, and then he returned to drinking. She got to her feet immediately and took the glass to refill it as soon as it was empty. If he wanted to drink half the water in Georgia, tonight she'd let him.

"Rooster. My brother. We're Dixons. That's what Dixons do. Stick by each other," Daryl said. He laughed to himself. "For better or for fuckin' worse." His interest in the water was renewed when Carol returned the glass and he drank half of it with the same vigor he'd used to drain the first glass. Carol remained standing this time because she could sense that she'd be refilling it again in a moment. She crossed her arms across her chest.

"Is there anyone else?" Carol asked.

He stopped drinking and looked at her. He lowered his ice pack because it was obstructing his vision. Carol moved her hand toward him, touched his, and raised it up to hold the ice in place again. He hissed when the rag made contact with his skin.

"Who the hell else do you think there is, lady?" He asked. "Who the hell else you think would stay around for that? I know you're thinkin' that's what the hell I oughta do. Run out. Get the hell out and stay out. But there ain't nobody else—and that ain't what we do."

Carol swallowed. She felt like she could feel his pain. It was radiating around him like a cloud. She could hear it in his voice. It was streaked across his features. She knew that the irritation and the anger in his voice wasn't directed at her.

She distracted herself by taking the glass, as soon as he was done with it, to refill it again.

He groaned when she returned it to the table, but he made no indication if he was groaning at the reappearing water or at something else. He put his head on his hand and his elbow slipped. Sober he might have had the reflexes to stop the fall forward that he made, but drunk he didn't. His elbow sent the bottle flying to the side and Carol jumped when it hit the floor even though she'd somewhat seen it coming. The coffee, too, that had been forgotten in front of him was knocked over and it spilled out over the table.

He sat up, suddenly a little more sobered than he had been.

"Shit," he spat, looking at the spreading mess across the table and the floor. "Shit...fuck...I..."

But he stopped because he was in no condition to finish what it was he had to say. And he didn't need to. It had been an accident. He'd been drinking—a great deal given how little really spilled out of the bottle. And he was tired—and it was clear that he was giving into that fatigue now that he was in her kitchen. Carol, too, had passed out on a friend's couch before while Sophia slept in the woman's bedroom just because, immediately, being closed in her home had felt like being in the safe kind of place where they could both sleep without worry or judgment.

"It's OK," Carol said quickly. She smiled at Daryl when he looked at her, even though she was choking back her own desire to cry _for_ him. "It's OK. It's just a little spill." She shook her head at him. "It's nothing to worry about. Come on—let me show you where the bathroom is? You want to—you need to go to the bathroom?"

Maybe he hadn't had to, but upon her suggestion of it, he seemed to think it was a good idea. He didn't seem to be able to muddle through what he might do with the ice pack, so Carol took it and rested it on the table. She offered a hand to him to help him up. She steadied him when he stood. His eyelids drooped under the weight of it all. He looked around again at the mess. Then he looked at her.

"Shit," he said again, less force behind the word this time. "Shit—I'm...gotta go. Shouldn'ta come here. I shouldn't..."

Carol shook her head at him.

"You're going to sleep here," she said. "You already said you would," she lied. "And you're going to go to the bathroom and—I'm going to clean this up because it isn't anything. It's just a little spill. I—did way worse this morning. Come on."

He went with her. In the hallway to the bathroom, he stumbled. His full weight went onto Carol and, finding that she couldn't support it, the both of them slammed into the wall. She soothed over his new round of apology and got him into the bathroom. She was afraid to leave him alone in there, but she couldn't very well offer to help him. She cringed when she heard the crashing and clattering around that followed. Quickly she darted back to the kitchen and cleaned up the mess as fast as she could. She could wipe it up better once he was down for the count, but she wanted enough of it gone that he wouldn't worry about it.

As soon as she was satisfied he'd find no evidence of the spill, Carol returned to the bathroom and knocked on the door. When he didn't come out, she knocked again. Panic rose up in her chest a little and finally she tried the door. She half-shielded her eyes as she stepped in. She didn't want to embarrass him. He was dressed, though, and leaned against the sink with his head on his hands.

"Come on," Carol said, checking her tone of voice to keep it as gentle as she could. "Let's get you to the couch. Let's—get some sleep. It'll be better in the morning."

"No," he responded, not lifting his head. "No. No. It ain't gonna be better'n mornin'..."

Carol walked in and rubbed her hand across his back.

"It'll be better in the morning," she said. "I promise you. It'll be better in the morning. All you have to do right now? Is go to sleep. And—it'll be better in the morning."

He looked at her, and he must have believed her. He straightened himself up.

"Are you done in here?" Carol asked, taking inventory of a few things she'd need to clean up now that they'd been knocked over. He looked around and hummed. She took it as confirmation and slipped her arms around him to pull him with her. He came, only running her into the wall once, and eventually she got him to the couch. Quickly she made the best makeshift bed that she could for him and got him to lie down. She agreed to everything he said, most of it unintelligible because it was mumbled in drunken slurs and he was half-sleep, and she promised him again that things would be better in the morning.

She didn't know how, exactly, they'd be better, but she knew that they had to get better.

And he must have believed her then too, because he was fast asleep by the time she returned, only seconds later, with the pillow and the blanket that she promised him.


	5. Chapter 5

**AN: Here we go, another chapter.**

 **I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!**

111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111

Carol was transferring the second batch of bacon from the pan to the plate—not sure really how much Daryl might be able to eat—when she heard the sound of him beginning to stir around on the couch. He'd slept all night. Hard. She'd checked, more than once, for a pulse while she was up and asking herself what she was doing. While she was up and asking herself if she was doing the right thing.

 _Maybe she was just doing the only thing._

Carol finished with the bacon and moved the grease-filled pan to the back eye. She switched the eye off and ran her fingertips over the knob, while looking at the "off" printed there, to reassure herself that it was as off as it could be. Then she wiped her hands on the dishtowel near her and sucked in a breath to prepare herself for facing Daryl.

He was sitting on the couch, his elbows on his legs, with his face in his hands.

"There's coffee brewing," Carol said. "Water and aspirin waiting at the table. Do you remember where the bathroom is?"

He looked at her, squinted at her, and returned his head to his hands.

"Hardly remember who the hell you are," he said. Carol laughed, even though she was sure he wasn't entirely joking.

"You almost drank enough to kill yourself last night," Carol said, pushing her humor aside. "I kept a check on you through the night to make sure you didn't—die or choke or whatever."

He looked at her again, still squinting. The light of morning was, no doubt, hard on his head.

"I puked on you?" He asked.

Carol shook her head.

"No, you never did," Carol said. "And, honestly, that's what worried me most. If you'd puked, at least I would've known you got some of it out of your system. Come on—I'll show you where the bathroom is."

He seemed reluctant, but he finally got up and followed her. He was quiet as he dragged himself through the house and back down the hallway that they'd travelled together the night before. Carol had already cleaned up the bathroom from the night before and thrown out anything that had been broken and couldn't be repaired. He'd feel bad enough this morning, he didn't need any evidence of what his drunken self was capable of.

She left him alone and returned to the kitchen. At one of the seats at the table, she put a glass of water and the promised aspirin. She poured two cups of coffee and then she brought all the plates to the table for them to serve themselves. It wasn't a grand breakfast—scrambled eggs, bacon, toast, and sliced tomatoes from her garden—but it would do. It was, more than likely, the nicest breakfast he'd seen in some time.

Carol was just sitting down at the table when Daryl came back into the kitchen, scuffing his feet as he did so, and scratching at the back of his neck. He looked at the table, looked at her, and then shook his head.

"So—thanks," he said. "But—I gotta get goin'."

"You're having breakfast," Carol said. He shook his head at her and she got back up from where she was sitting. "You're having breakfast," she repeated. Seeing that he was going to make the effort to actually go around her entirely, Carol stepped into his path. He stopped and stared at her. The eye that was blacked was swollen, a slit compared to the other. "I listened to you last night," she said. "Now you owe it to me. You're going to eat the breakfast that I made you and—you're going to listen to me."

She'd been right. The idea of a debt owed was an idea that got through to Daryl. He looked almost nervously at the table—like home-grown tomatoes might poison him—and then he nodded somewhat reluctantly at her.

"You don't gotta do this for me," he said. "I shouldn'ta come here in the first place."

"This is exactly where you should have come," Carol said. "And—from the looks of that eye? And from the amount of booze you drank last night? You should have come sooner."

She practically pushed him into the chair, but he sat. She took her seat and gestured for him to take the aspirin before she set about fixing her own plate and passing him the dishes. He looked a little woozy at the food, but Carol pressed him to eat.

"You'll feel better once you start," she said. "It'll soak up some of that leftover alcohol."

"Why are you bein' so damn nice to me?" Daryl asked, almost sounding offended by Carol's kindness. Carol raised her eyebrows at him.

"Because—I've been in a similar position and—I know how much the nice can mean. When you haven't really seen a lot of it before," Carol said.

Daryl looked at her, but immediately turned his attention back to spreading the butter on his toast. She understood. It was hard to believe. It was one of the reasons she was always a little reluctant to share her story with those that she met through the Center. When you were in the middle of it? It could seem impossible to believe that anyone ever really got out. Getting out was a myth. And then? If you could believe that someone got out? You could only seem to believe that it was because they were lucky or were somehow destined to have something that you simply couldn't have.

But Carol was going to share. Daryl could do with it what he wanted.

"My husband," Carol said, scraping butter onto her own toast as soon as Daryl abandoned the knife, "used to beat me. Daily. I left him three times in all. Twice, I came back." She shook her head to herself. It wasn't easy to even remember her own story, simply because it played it back for her. At this point she'd pushed it to such a distance that she could talk about it, holding it almost like a movie that she vaguely remembered even though she'd been the star of it, but it still stung—for different reasons now. "Both those times, he nearly sent me to the emergency room. I probably should've gone, but that would've just made it worse. The last time I left, I left with the help of the Center. They—got me temporary housing. My name didn't have to be on it. They helped get me connected with someone to find a job. Helped me get a lawyer."

Daryl was paying very close attention to his scrambled eggs. Carol knew that he was hearing her, but he wasn't speaking. He probably didn't know what to say and she didn't expect him to say anything. She was slightly struck, though, by what he did say when he chose to speak.

"Yeah..." he drawled out, reaching for the pepper. "Different."

After regaining herself, Carol hummed at him.

"Of course it's different," Carol said. "Every situation is different. But it's the same too."

He hummed, almost like she amused him.

"How ya figure?" He asked, over peppering his food.

Carol considered it. She wasn't a psychiatrist. She wasn't even a psychologist. The biggest claim she had to even knowing what to say in these situations was that she knew what she might have wanted said to her and she'd sat through more meetings at the Center than most people did.

She was on thin ice.

"You said something last night about—it's what you do," Carol said. "You stay with Peacock or..."

Daryl snorted and looked at her. He almost looked embarrassed by his amusement.

"Rooster," he corrected.

"You stay with Rooster," Carol said, correcting herself. "You stay with—your brother?" He nodded. "Because that's what you do. That's what family does."

"That's what the hell Dixons do," Daryl said. "Don't got nothin' or no damn body if you don't got each other."

"Obligation," Carol said. "Obligation. Staying with someone because it's the right thing to do. Staying with someone because they tell you it's the right thing to do. If you can't believe that's why I stayed with my husband—then I don't know what to tell you."

"And because you was too scared to leave?" Daryl asked.

Carol caught something in his tone of voice. She swallowed and reminded herself that anger wouldn't get her anywhere with him. He was, in some way, almost challenging her. She raised her eyebrows at him again.

"Aren't you?" She asked. He dropped his eyes again. "I was afraid he'd find me," Carol said. She nodded her acceptance of Daryl's reading of her situation—something he'd never experienced with her because it had been years before. "I was afraid he'd kill me. I was afraid he'd hurt my daughter." Daryl glanced at her and she nodded her head. "I have a daughter," she said. "I had her with my husband. I was afraid—that he'd hurt her. Just to spite me. And—I was afraid that everything that he said was true. That—I really would end up alone. Nobody would love me. He was doing me a favor."

Daryl looked at her. His stare, this time, was hard. He broke the look only to glance around.

"You do alright for yourself," he said. "By the looks of it. Got your kid. Got this—house. But I ain't noticed you mention nothing else. Ain't seen nobody else. End up alone?"

Carol shook her head at him.

"No," she said. "No. I'm not alone." She tasted her coffee, her appetite failing for the moment. "I have my daughter. I have my work. I have good relationships with my colleagues. I've connected with some distant family that I lost touch with while I was married to Ed. I've got the people at the Center. I've got _good_ friends now. Close friends."

Daryl continued eating, practically vacuuming the meal into his mouth. He swallowed after a moment.

"But you ain't got no husband," Daryl said. "No boyfriend? Nobody here."

Carol nodded her head at him gently.

"I've been asked out," Carol said. "I've been on a few dates. I've been on a few second dates, even. If I'm alone, it's because I choose to be." She shrugged. "I've learned that I like my company. I like my daughter's company."

"She'll grow up," Daryl said. "You taught her to leave the house?"

Carol nodded.

"But I won't be alone then either," Carol said. "Unless I choose to be. I could have a relationship—a romantic one—if I wanted. But—there's time for that. It doesn't have to happen right now. Right now? I can focus on me. There's time for the rest."

Daryl hummed at her and simply returned to cleaning his plate. She watched him mop up everything that might be left over with the toast—the plate almost clean enough to go straight back into the cabinet—and then she watched him cram the whole piece of bread into his mouth.

"Obligation doesn't work," Carol said. "It's not healthy. Staying because you feel like you have to stay? It isn't good for you. You don't owe _anyone_ your _life_. I can't tell you to leave—because you won't stay out until you make that decision on your own—but I can tell you to consider it. Think about—what you might like. If you didn't have that obligation? If you—didn't cut ties entirely but you gave yourself the space to be _Daryl_? Who would Daryl be? What would—what would Daryl do?"

Daryl sat there, stiff in his chair and half hunched over his clean plate for a moment, before he finally stood up. He stood directly up and the only thing that kept the chair from tipping over and falling to the floor was that he caught it and stepped out of its way even as he slid it back under the table. His reflexes, this morning, were certainly different that they'd been the night before.

"Thank you," Daryl said. "For—the breakfast. For..." He grunted out something that was apparently a sound to cover everything else he felt that Carol needed thanking for. Carol stood, too.

"I didn't mean to offend you," Carol said.

"You don't know nothin' about me," Daryl said. "About—you just don't know nothin', lady."

His tone of voice wasn't as harsh as his words, but there was a little bit of warning behind them. It was defensiveness. It was "don't come any closer". It was fear.

Carol understood it and she accepted it.

"Your wallet? And your keys?" She directed. "Are on the table by the couch."

Daryl patted his pocket to say that he'd already found them. Carol swallowed and crossed her arms across her chest.

"Call any time you want," she said. "But—you should lay off the drinking. You—you think it helps, but it doesn't. All it does? It just makes you not feel things."

He laughed, ironically, and mumbled something at her as he turned and started to let himself out of her door. She followed him.

"What do you want?!" He asked, his voice raising, as he turned back to look at her—obviously bothered that she'd followed him to her own porch.

"The numbness?" Carol said. "It's temporary. Eventually? You've got to—feel it. You've got to _really_ feel it. For things to get better? You've got to feel that pain and you've got to—want for it to get _better_. I can't help you, Daryl. Nobody can. Not until you're ready to be helped. Not until—you're ready to help yourself."

"Keep that in mind," Daryl said, halfheartedly. Carol was pretty sure, though, that he _would_ keep it in mind. He was probably very well-accustomed to turning words over in his head and hearing them time and time again. He probably held onto words far more than he ever let them go.

She knew that she did.

"When you figure out who you want to be, Daryl," Carol said, calling out to him even as he went toward the truck that she remembered him having driven to the Center. "Independently of your father's son? When you figure it out? We can help you be that. You just—you just have to figure it out. You have to want it."

He threw up a hand in response, but he didn't say anything. Carol stood on the porch, her arms crossed across her chest, and she watched as he pulled out of her driveway.

She could only hope, now, that things got better for Daryl. It was out of her hands.


	6. Chapter 6

**AN: Here we are, another chapter.**

 **I hope that you enjoy! Let me know what you think!**

1111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111

It had been three days and there was one hole in the wall to patch. He was responsible for that one. He had no one to blame for it but himself. Punching the plaster, though, seemed like the best idea at the time and it had—for just one split second—relieved some of the frustration that he felt. He'd have to patch it, though, so that would cost him time. He'd have to listen to the bitching about it, too, until he got it patched—and then while he was patching it. He wouldn't get around to it, though, until after the stiffness in his knuckles had subsided some.

He wasn't in any hurry. A hole in the wall, in this house, was really the least of his concerns.

The woman Merle knocked up had been banging on their door like a debt-collector. She showed up at intervals and kept the oddest damn hours. Daryl had run into her—face to face and almost literally—when he'd gotten home from work the day before. She might be clean now, but the condition of her skin and teeth told him that she hadn't seen too many days since she'd had her last hit of some shit or another.

She'd had a hard damn life. But, really, hadn't they all?

He'd run her out of the yard the same way he might have run off one of the mangy ass dogs that came up to try and tip over their trash cans and help themselves to any of the garbage inside. He'd saved her only the indignity of getting a stick to wave at her while he damn near chased her down the driveway and told her to take her ass home—take it back where the hell she belonged because she didn't belong there.

She didn't know that he was doing her the biggest favor he could.

Get rid of Merle's kid or keep it—another worthless asshole born right into a world full of worthless assholes—but she was better off without Merle. She was better off without a Dixon—at least one that knew that's what the hell he was.

Daryl heard someone say, somewhere—though it could've just been some philosophical drunk at the bar spreading shit—that the reason that none of them got anywhere was because the world was designed that way. Those that were down, stayed down. They were raised, without even knowing it, to simply stay where the hell they were put when they come out of their mothers, screaming and helpless. They grew up surrounded by people that were just like them and it was only one in a million of them that ever crawled out of that hole and found out there was something different out there than what they knew.

People stuck with what the hell they knew.

Daryl had never known any different than the life that he had. He'd never been anything but a Dixon in a house full of Dixons. He'd followed right along in Merle's tracks as surely as if they'd been chained together as soon as Daryl had the sense to put one foot in front of the other—and Merle, whether he meant to or not, was following right along in Rooster's tracks.

The old man was asleep. Asleep was a poetic term for what he was doing. He was passed out drunk from what Daryl could tell. He'd come in and found him that way when he got off from working late. He'd damn near pissed his pants from excitement, thinking for a moment that the old man had finally given up the fight and gone on to wherever the hell he went from here, but he'd checked him. He was still breathing and the bottle of rot-gut was evidence of what had gotten him there at such an early bedtime.

Merle was out—where, Daryl didn't know and he didn't ask.

And Daryl was sitting at the kitchen table, nursing his own bottle of slightly better grade whiskey than the old man had passed out on and cleaning the knuckles he'd busted. He couldn't afford an infection right now and he would do anything to keep it from happening. If that meant dousing the broken skin in the harsh-smelling paint thinner twice a day, then so be it.

He didn't mind the self-inflicted pain. He sat at the table, his hand over the bowl, and almost _enjoyed_ it. It burned like hell-fire but at least it felt like something entirely outside of the nearly-constant ache that hung behind his ribs.

Maybe Carol was right.

Maybe he had to feel things. Maybe that was the key to everything. He had to feel things like the stinging of his knuckles. Things that were his _own_ pain, and not the pain that had been doled out to him by Rooster, or even Merle, when they were pissed at something inside them that they couldn't quite get to.

Daryl paused with the harassment of his own hand and got up for a towel to wrap it in. He burrowed around in the stack of them leaning beside the refrigerator—a stack he'd washed and put there because there weren't any clean ones when he'd gone looking for one before and he'd had to make do with a half a roll of barely absorbent paper towels wound around the wounds—and he wrapped one of the towels tightly around his still stinging hand. He returned to the table, lit a cigarette, and turned his head in the direction of the recliner when he heard the old man stir enough to hack himself back into oblivion.

 _She felt something._

Daryl always wondered what his mother felt the day that she'd stayed there and let herself just get eat up by the flames that swallowed up her bed. They said she was drunk—passed out—dead from the smoke before the flames even made good. All but gone entirely by the time they got there. Said she didn't feel a thing. Maybe she never felt the fire. Maybe they were right about that.

But she felt something before she went in there. She had to have felt something that made her sit right there, in her bed, and drink and smoke until it all went black for good.

Daryl looked at his cigarette burning in his hand. He took a drag off it just to watch the burning tip consume the paper. He blew the smoke out and coughed lightly at the exhale.

He sometimes felt just the same way he imagined that she did. He felt that way right now. He felt tired and heavy and like it just didn't fucking matter because it wasn't getting any better. He heard people say it would get better—Carol said it and the asshole had preached it at him while he sat in an orange plastic chair at that damn Center—but it wasn't getting any better. It had never gotten better. In fact, every day since he'd shoveled around in ashes for anything that reminded him of her, it had gotten a little bit worse. And every day it continued sliding down deeper into some kind of pit that had to, eventually, have a bottom.

He wasn't the kind of person who could pick up a gun and end it all. He couldn't pick a supporting beam and wrap a wire around it. He couldn't swallow down a gut full of pills and sit on the floor, willing himself not to vomit before they made him black out.

But he could kill himself.

He'd been doing it for years.

As surely as Rooster. As surely as Merle.

He'd been doing it for years. Booze and cigarettes. Getting behind the wheel of the truck or crawling on the bike when he could barely stay on his own damn feet and half-crawled through a parking lot somewhere. Rough nights he couldn't even recall and risky ass behavior that he knew was a bad damn idea while he was doing it.

As surely as she'd done it.

Just staying his ass still—just sitting in one damn place—knowing that eventually it would eat him all up. It would consume every last bit of him. And then he'd just be gone.

Suicide wasn't always as fast as some people thought. It could happen a whole lot more slowly. Sometimes it took well-over seventy-two years. But it was the same damn thing.

It was not giving a shit enough to get up and move out of the way of the slow-moving bullet.

 _Carol got the hell out of it. If her husband beat her? If he put her in the same damn place where she had a choice between getting the hell out of it and letting herself get burned the hell up until there weren't nothing left but ashes? She got the hell out of it._

 _And she said he could too._

Daryl finished the cigarette he was smoking and lit another—coffin nails. One by one. He put them in place.

Who the hell would he be? She'd asked him that and it had damn near scared the piss out of him because he didn't even know where he could begin to answer a question like that. He'd never been anybody else.

But who would he be if he _were_ somebody else?

His instinct was to insist that he'd be just another loser asshole—different name and same story. But this wasn't about who the hell he figured he'd be. It was about who he _wanted_ to be.

He wanted to be the kind of person who started more mornings without a hangover than with one. He wanted to be the kind of person who didn't feel like he needed to drink just to make his existence tolerable. He wanted to be, maybe, even the kind of person who could proudly say that he just didn't drink at all—his life was so good that he didn't need to.

Daryl wanted to be the kind of person that worked and then went home—but looked forward to it. The kind of person who didn't make up small jobs that could really be put off just to keep from going to the place that was supposed to be his kingdom. He wanted to come home and not wonder what the hell would be there waiting for him—or if it was a bad day or as good as any day ever got.

He thought he might like to go to the lake. Go hunting. Go fishing. He might like to drink lemonade and laugh at jokes that weren't about the whores down at the bar that had all been with his brother at one time or another. He wanted to laugh. Really laugh—not laugh because he felt like that's what the person running their mouth expected him to do.

And he wanted to sleep at night in a clean bed on clean sheets—and maybe even with a clean woman beside him.

He wanted something different. He wanted to be someone different. He wanted to be someone who didn't look a whole lot like the person he'd been all his life.

In actuality?

He didn't know what the hell he wanted. There were too many possibilities. The world was too damn big and too full of people that weren't Dixons and didn't live like he lived. He'd spent too little time considering the question to have an answer to it. He didn't know what he wanted or who he wanted to be.

But he did know that he didn't want what he had right now. He did know that the thought of going on like he was? The thought of ending up like Rooster—hateful and bitter and wicked and dying just too damn slow? It terrified the hell out of him.

Rooster would die, eventually. Merle would die eventually. There weren't any more Dixons and Daryl would end up just like them both—but alone.

Daryl didn't have a clue who the hell he wanted to be or what kind of life he wanted to have. He couldn't answer that question. The only thing he knew was what he _didn't_ want—and what he didn't want was all that he had and all that he was.

And he didn't know if it could get any better—but they said it could. And from here? It surely couldn't get any worse.

And Daryl just didn't want to sit there, in his life, and go up in flames.


	7. Chapter 7

**AN: Here we are. The last chapter.**

 **Thanks to the Anon who wanted to see this. I'm not entirely sure it's what you wanted, but I hope that it was!**

 **Thanks to those who read! I hope you enjoyed! Let me know what you think!**

11111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111

Carol double timed her steps down the hallway toward the meeting room. She was at least fifteen minutes late to the meeting—maybe even twenty or twenty-five—but she had a good reason. The printer in the Center's main office was a dinosaur and the computer that connected to it was equally as old. She'd had to coax them to life to bring the documents with her that she'd promised to print for Julie. She stepped into the room, still sorting through the pages that were slightly warm to the touch, and glanced up only long enough to assure herself that she wasn't about to collide with someone or something.

"Julie? These are the pages...I think they're all here—yes...they're here. This is what you're going to have to take in tomorrow," Carol said, her head still down. She glanced up, silence surrounding her, and muttered an apology for the interruption.

Robert laughed from where he was sitting.

"No apology necessary," he said. "There's no better interruption than a job interruption."

Carol smiled to herself.

One more person placed in a position where they had potential to—if not grow—at least get back on their feet. Julie's apartment was working out well for her. The paperwork was in motion to get the divorce she ached for. The police were informed of her situation. And soon? She'd be a much happier person because the position would help get her off the financial aid that she loathed.

One more life, it seemed, could begin again.

It felt like the beginning, all over again, for Carol too. She didn't want to admit to any of them that every time they got the pieces to fall into place for someone else, it felt like they were falling into place for her again. She celebrated with them, even if she did it in silence.

Julie got to her feet and accepted the paperwork from Carol along with a quick hug. Carol didn't miss the dampness of the woman's eyes—a woman who a month ago had looked terrified just over having bumped into her in the hallway and had offered her a fake name because she was scared of anything getting back to the man she'd been married to for just shy of two years—and Carol offered her another hug that was just to say that _she understood_. When Julie sat, flipping through the documents that she'd take in to start her new job the following day, Carol took her own seat near Robert and begged, once more, forgiveness for having interrupted Miranda as she related what had happened in the week since they'd last seen her.

Carol was listening with one ear tonight, half her mind still on Julie and what the future might hold for her, when her attention was drawn by movement near the door. She turned her head that way and her stomach did an odd sort of flip.

Daryl hovered in the doorway a moment. He peeked his head in and looked around. He hesitated like he might back up—like he might leave. Carol hit her feet, at the same time Robert did, and they both waved the man into the room quietly. Daryl still hesitated, but he stepped into the room and muttered an apology to Miranda who excused him his interruption. Daryl sat, crossed one leg over the other, and bobbed his foot while he chewed at his thumb and listened to Miranda. He kept looking at Carol, but she wouldn't have known that if she hadn't kept looking at him.

When Miranda was done, Robert addressed her. She wanted _something_ , but she wasn't ready to make a move. She was resisting them at every turn and Robert repeated some of the offers they had on the table for her—things to help her take that first step. It was up to her, he reminded her, whether or not she would take them. They couldn't force her.

And then Robert addressed Daryl.

"Welcome," Robert said. "Welcome..."

"Daryl," Daryl filled in. "I was here before. While back. Now—I'm—uh—I'm back."

He was back. He was back and there was something different about him. There was something different than the last time Carol had seen him stomping away from her porch. He'd had a haircut. That was the first thing that she noticed was different. His hair no longer hung down around his shoulders. He was still dirty—evidence of a long workday that may have been why he had shown up late—but he looked different in general. There was a change around his eyes.

"Do you want to talk with us tonight?" Carol asked, sensing it was her turn to speak.

Daryl cleared his throat and looked at the people in the circle. No one there was dangerous. No one there was judging anyone else. They all had far too much to deal with themselves to worry about the size of other people's problems in comparison. Daryl cleared his throat again and Carol wished she had water to offer him—but the fountain was their closest source. Daryl shifted around, though, and put both feet flat on the floor. He leaned into the circle like he might share a great secret with all of them. And then he locked his eyes on Carol.

"I don't know what I want," he said. "I don't know—what the hell I want outta anything. Nobody—they just ain't never asked me that before. But—somebody _did_. And I been tryin' to figure it out. I like my job. It's a good job. Don't mind goin' to it. Pay's decent. Could get me a benefit package, but I ain't filed the paperwork."

He paused and seemed to assess his audience. He'd find nothing there but people waiting patiently for him to say all that he had to say. He was new. He was sharing. They weren't going to cut him off, not even if he hesitated. Seeing that, he cleared his throat again, choking on air, and then he continued.

"I'ma do it, though," he said. "Fill out the paperwork. And—uh—got me a trailer. It ain't much. Out—out there—uh—do I gotta say where it is?"

Carol shook her head at him. He nodded in response. He was watching her more than anyone else. He was watching her to tell him that what he was doing, what he was saying, was _good_. That it was _acceptable_.

"Got me a place," he said quickly. "Ain't got—not much in it—but I got me a place. Just—uh—just me now. Just—figurin' out, now, how it is that I get...from here to there."

"Where's _there_?" Robert pressed. "Do you have a _there_ in mind?"

Daryl shifted his eyes toward Robert and then he looked back toward Carol. She nodded at him. She offered him a smile.

"Are you safe?" She asked, softly.

His eyes darted around the circle again. He went slightly rigid. He relaxed back into it and bobbed his whole upper body as a nod.

"Enough," he said. "Pissed..." He stopped, but he picked it up again immediately. "Pissed off—people. Thinkin' I'm too damn good. I don't—though—think I'm too damn good. Not—not really better. Just—tryin' to..."

"Figure out what you want?" Carol offered, seeing that he was struggling. He nodded.

"But I don't know it all," he said. "Not right now. Don't—don't know what I want."

"There's time for that," Robert assured him. "There's time to figure everything out. And we can help you. You've got a new place. You're safe. You're employed. You can tell us what you need. We'll help you get it. We'll help you figure it out from here. We'll help you work through what you need _and_ what you want. All you have to do is be willing to help us help you."

Daryl looked at the man and nodded. Then, he looked back at Carol.

"Yeah," he said. "That's—why I'm here."

1111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111

Carol stopped in the main office to leave some notes for Rhonda, who would be making some calls during the week, and then she phoned Michonne, her best friend and one of her biggest supporters in the past few years, to let her know that she'd be coming by soon to pick up Sophia. All her tasks out of the way, she swung by Robert's sometimes-office, wished him a good night, and finally left the building. The parking lot, outside, was still somewhat crowded. Some of the people didn't want to go home. Others stayed to offer each other private support and to share pieces of their stories that they weren't comfortable sharing with an audience. Recognized, and hearing her name, Carol waved at a few as she made her way toward her car with her keys in hand.

But she stopped, her car in sight, when she heard her name being repeated, each time a little more urgent than before.

And she turned to find Daryl, double timing his steps, making his way across the parking lot toward her. Carol turned toward him and offered him a smile.

"I'm glad you came," she said as he reached her, slightly out of breath.

"I thought about what you said," he said.

Carol nodded.

"And it looks like you're on your way," Carol said. "The first steps are always the hardest."

He nodded at her and looked around.

"Old man pitched a fit," Daryl said. "When I said I was leaving."

Carol swallowed and nodded. She wouldn't have expected any less. She didn't want to ask—because it wasn't her place if he didn't offer the information willingly—if anything else had happened.

"Merle—my brother? He's pissed...but...I kinda think he's gonna come around," Daryl said. "See him...see him at work, ya know? We work together and—and...uh...he weren't talkin' at first, but...kinda think he's gonna look for somethin' too."

Carol smiled and nodded.

"That could be good for him," she said.

"Old man—says he can't take care of himself," Daryl said.

"It's not your job to take care of him," Carol offered. "It's not. Especially—especially if he can't treat you with respect? If he can't treat you with—kindness? And decency? It's not your job to take care of him."

Daryl laughed ironically and nodded his head, not quite managing to make eye contact with Carol now that there wasn't an audience and half a room of distance between them.

"Still workin' on believing that," he said.

Carol hummed.

"That takes time," she said.

"Don't it all?" Daryl asked.

Carol nodded.

"It does," she admitted. "It _all_ takes time. But you're—you're headed in the right direction. And it only gets better from here. One step at a time. It's only going to get better."

"Listen," Daryl said, "I wanted to talk to you."

"You can talk to me any time," Carol offered quickly.

He nodded and moved a hand to scratch at the back of his neck.

"Thing is," he said. "I—wanted to talk to you. Not—not in there. Just—to you." Carol nodded to keep him speaking and he kept glancing at her. There was something that was different about him—beyond the haircut. She still couldn't put her finger on it. Maybe he looked rested. Maybe he was sleeping more. He looked a great deal different than he had. She felt her cheeks grow warm, when he caught her eyes again, because she couldn't help but noticed that he looked a lot _better_. "Wanted to ask you—and I don't really know—but did you maybe want to...I mean I know you're busy with this and with...you work and you got the kid, but...did'ja want to maybe...have dinner sometime?"

Carol's stomach flipped and her chest caught. She swallowed, quickly trying to hide her own reaction.

"You mean—as a mentor?" Carol asked.

Daryl looked almost sick. He stared at her now. Either he'd lost the problem with holding her gaze or he was frozen to the point that he couldn't drop it.

"Was hoping not," he said.

Carol's stomach twisted a little more violently than it had. She shook her head gently.

"I don't know if—that would be a good idea," Carol said. She hated having to say it, but she knew that it was, more than likely, the best answer for them both. "I like you, and I would like to get to know you, but..." She hesitated. His expression was changing and she didn't like the change. The change that came across his features made her chest ache. "You really need to focus on yourself, Daryl," Carol said. "This time? Right now? It's really important for _you_. It's time that's about... _you_. About what you want and what you need...and..."

He held a hand up to her. The universal signal that she should stop talking and she was almost grateful for it because she desperately wanted to stop talking but she wasn't entirely sure how to go about it.

"I get it," Daryl said. "You—still dealing with you. And—you said you—well, you ain't there. And maybe I ain't neither. But—I'm talkin' about dinner. Food and sitting at a table and—there ain't no booze."

Carol bit back a smile.

"But not a date?" She asked.

He stared at her and clawed almost mercilessly at the back of his neck.

"Still figuring out what I want," Daryl said, repeating the mantra that they'd been through for much of the evening. "But—right now? I'd settle for—somethin'—somethin' that I just ain't had before. Dinner—not as no mentor. Dinner—as a _friend_?"

Carol sucked in a breath. She thought about it for a moment, but knew that her silence probably wouldn't be appreciated in the moment. It was a big step for Daryl, and that truth was written all over his face.

She smiled at him and nodded her head.

"I think—dinner as a friend would be nice," Carol said. She nodded again. "Dinner as a friend would—be great. You can never have enough friends."

Daryl smiled, clearly relieved.

"I'd settle for one," he said, some laughter seeping into the words. Carol felt her chest tighten quickly. "Friday?"

Carol nodded.

"Seven?" She asked. He nodded. He renewed the smile.

"Friday," he said. "Seven. I could—pick you up. Know where you live."

Carol nodded.

"I'd like that," she said. "Dinner. Friday at seven. As a friend."

He smiled again, quickly wiped it away, and nodded.

"There's time for everything else," he said.

Carol laughed to herself and tried to cover it up. She nodded.

"There is," she said. "There's time for—everything else."


End file.
